Labour Party as Dead as Disco

Labour is the absolute definition of wanting to be centrist. It is hoping desperately to discover what 'the people' want but it can't cope with the fact the people it is trying to learn from are split into opposing camps. All them MPs that left formed a new 'centrist' party. Not one of them is now an MP and that new party lasted about a month.

If you have a divided country, you have to define a new centre. You can't just say 'we are the centre'

All the great leaders do that - they redefine what 'the centre' is and means. You don't go and ask 'what is the centre' - you make an argument and around you, people form. Atlee did it, Thatcher did it, Wilson did it. You form it from the circumstances of the age. You sell it as reason, sense, a vision.

Labour is just sort of hoping that by doing nothing, eventually it will become apparent what to do as it is clueless.

If it goes economically left as it needs to do to win the 'red wall' (as Boris has, by promising investment) it will alienate it's liberal middle Englanders who want it to be about social campaigning.

If it goes socially left, it will alienate the 'red wall'

Boris did for that last election, by shifting left to neutralise Corbyn on the economy and remaining right on social policy. That made Corbyn go further left and then they could push him into cartoon Marxist territory, even though Johnson had cribbed much from the 2017 Corbyn manifesto. Johnson was smart enough to realise austerity was increasingly unpopular and to ditch it and find a money tree of his own.

Broadly speaking, left wing economics are relatively popular but liberal social policies are less so.

The idea that England is fundamentally right wing is only true to a point. Everyone likes the idea of their town, city, school, transport etc being invested in. People want businesses to pay fair taxes, people want a sense of opportunity, they would like their kids and grandkids to be able to afford houses etc etc etc.

The key problem it has it is locked in an endless battle between the left and the centre. Quite why it can't just reconcile that by becoming a centre left party and asking the extremes to join either George Galloway or the lib Dems is beyond me, but actually, I think a well led, clear and positive centre left party that was pragmatic enough to concede some ground on social issues in order to win economic influence would be relatively popular.

There's massive issues it could and should be exploiting but it looks terrified of its own shadow. It's like it's one plan is to 'not fuck up' and in doing so, it looks like it has no ideas and thus, as the country really needs new ideas (i.e we're entering a new paradigm, outside the EU) it appears woefully unready to govern.

And I say that as a notional labour supporter... If that's my judgement, god knows what people who aren't predisposed to vote red must make of it.
 
coppiceman said:
I don't think it is a superior attitude, tbf. But I do think there are some people on the left who can give the Tories a run for their money when it comes to arrogance.

It's depressing really. The day after an election, Labour's factions fighting like ferrets in a sack over who is to blame. Rinse and repeat.
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In a nutshell.

The left think they've had a glorious triumph in 2017 by not losing that badly.

The centre still harps back to 1997 and ignores that since then it's been a downward trend thereafter (especially in the kind of seat it lost today)

Neither of them will concede or compromise with each other and then everyone falls out over Israel or some other thing that's mainly irrelevant to 98.9999% of people.

Then they all blame the papers and around we go again.
 
Mexboroseasider said:
Yeah I agree with that. But a new centrist party - is its role to replace Labour or knock it onto a new course? Bearing in mind that if they are competing for the same votes doesn’t that ensure Tory hegemony?
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I actually don't mind which, but totally get your point about splitting the vote
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
It will probably take a few more election defeats but at some point we surely must have a progressive alliance between Labour / Lib Dems/ SNP/ Plwyd / Greens where they agree not to field candidates against each other against the Conservative. Then in government the alliance could implement a PR system that should lead to a more cooperative type of government and have another GE fairly quickly.
ATM we have a government supported by roughly 30% of the electorate and it is the same when Labour are in power, is this really the best form of democracy? The system we have renders the vast majority of votes meaningless.
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All in all you make valid points, however I think you miss a vital one.

Labour believe they can win an election, and probably still will however long this goes on for - let’s be honest, they have not learnt yet!

If Labour voted for PR they would be saying they will never be in real power again - and that I think would be to much for them.
 
seasideone said:
All in all you make valid points, however I think you miss a vital one.

Labour believe they can win an election, and probably still will however long this goes on for - let’s be honest, they have not learnt yet!

If Labour voted for PR they would be saying they will never be in real power again - and that I think would be to much for them.
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Without Scotland (which is heading for independence) they realistically have little or no chance without there being some monumental changes in attitude from the electorate. Maybe as alluded to above by Lytham, when Murdoch dies things may change a bit as Murdoch is the real power broker in the UK. A major reason for the Brexit vote is that the EU would not listen to Murdoch whereas any UK PM (from either party) will usually do what he wants.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
Without Scotland which is heading for independence they realistically have little or no chance without there being some monumental changes in attitude etc. Maybe as alluded to above by Lytham, when Murdoch dies things may change a bit as Murdoch is the real power broker in the UK. A major reason for the Brexit vote is that the EU would not listen to Murdoch whereas any UK PM (from either party) will usually do what he wants.
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I agree about Scotland, as I don’t think a Labour government has been returned without Scottish labour MPs making the majority ever.

Murdoch is an interesting one though, as I do not think he has anywhere near the power he used to.

Yes he owns The Times and The Sun but Sky has long left his dirty little fingers.

The power is now held by FB, Twitter and the like.
 
seasideone said:
I agree about Scotland, as I don’t think a Labour government has been returned without Scottish labour MPs making the majority ever.

Murdoch is an interesting one though, as I do not think he has anywhere near the power he used to.

Yes he owns The Times and The Sun but Sky has long left his dirty little fingers.

The power is now held by FB, Twitter and the like.
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Sorry but fb and twitter are just echo Chambers. If they were so powerful Labour would be in power. I think ravey davey once said twitter is not the real world...possibly the one thing he actually got right 🤣🤣
 
Ragnarok said:
Sorry but fb and twitter are just echo Chambers. If they were so powerful Labour would be in power. I think ravey davey once said twitter is not the real world...possibly the one thing he actually got right 🤣🤣
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Echo chamber is actually a great description.

However, the reason labour are not in power IMHO is that their message is rubbish, so you can shout it as much as you want but it will be ignored by many.

If you can ban POTUS from his main media forum - you definitely have power.
 
seasideone said:
Echo chamber is actually a great description.

However, the reason labour are not in power IMHO is that their message is rubbish, so you can shout it as much as you want but it will be ignored by many.

If you can ban POTUS from his main media forum - you definitely have power.
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Err not really...the bloke in Middlesbrough who owns this site has the power to ban you or I, it doesn't give him the power to be prime minister lol
 
Ragnarok said:
Err not really...the bloke in Middlesbrough who owns this site has the power to ban you or I, it doesn't give him the power to be prime minister lol
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If POTUS used AVFTT I doubt he would be banned as his posts would increase the value of this site stratospheric!!!

FB and Twitter banned him.

To compare you or I being banned to someone who had real power, is ludicrous.
 
straightatthewall said:
I think that encapsulates my thoughts perfectly. We have a thoroughly incompetent party in power and they still look miles more electable than Labour. I don’t really blame Starmer for that, he’s had no chance in the covid era to really attack the government on anything because whatever is said is batted away with ‘nobody could have done better’. That large swathes of the country accept that says as much about the world we live in as anything else, but that’s life.

As you say Going Up, the Scottish situation also doesn’t help Labour.

I’m left with the overwhelming feeling that the United Kingdom deserves a lot better than what we’re currently getting from all our political representatives. Let’s be frank, if Boris is the best of the lot then we’re in a deep deep hole.

As abhorrent as Maggie was to many, at least you knew who she was and what she stood for. And it wasn’t her own gain.

Repsonding directly to the OP, Labour needs to get back to a Blairite style. Centrist policies that appeal to the masses. That’s what the country votes for time and again.
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But *what are those centrist policies*

No one knows!

This is the problem. The centre is difficult to actually define. It is exactly where labour has (Corbyn in 2019 aside, the 2017 manifesto, really wasn't especially radical) tried to pitch itself but it keeps missing the mark as it's not as simple.

Everyone thinks of themselves as 'a normal person who just wants sensible policy' but as we've seen in the last few years, people will fall out over minor details of trade tariffs and just about any bit of shite and inconsequential shit you can think of. We're a lot more atomised and a lot more temperamental as an electorate than 1997. Not Tories. Schools and Asbos. That wouldn't wash now.

Write down 10 'common sense centre ground vote winning policies' and send them to labour. You could be leader cos they haven't got ten between all of them.

I think to win, you've got to be more creative. The lib Dems have been pulverised in the last few elections. Their entire purpose is to be the centre ground.

They should have made hay from labour going left. They got murdered.

I agree with you that we've got a really miserable crop at the moment and I think it's partly down to the inertia and their unwillingness to try and form/build/create a national consensus around anything new or slightly risky.

I'm no defender of Corbyn, but at least the lad tried. At least it was some sort of energy. At least he *tried* to address issues.

Boris is a walking focus group response mechanism and Kier is just, well, wet.
seasideone said:
I agree about Scotland, as I don’t think a Labour government has been returned without Scottish labour MPs making the majority ever.

Murdoch is an interesting one though, as I do not think he has anywhere near the power he used to.

Yes he owns The Times and The Sun but Sky has long left his dirty little fingers.

The power is now held by FB, Twitter and the like.
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They don't really wield power in the same way Murdoch did.

The power is wielded by the party who can successfully manipulate them. I'm not say they are apolitical, more that it's about how you game the system and the right have understood that more profoundly than labour.

Corbyn's social media strategy was nothing short of brilliant in 2017. Then the Tories woke up to it and blew it out the water in 2019, learning much from both Corbyn and Trump and indeed the Brexit vote.

That's another reason why starmer has failed so far. He's not realised that copying Blair and being mild doesn't make waves any more. It doesn't provide clicks. It might provide nice editorials in the papers, but that's so much less relevant.
 
seasideone said:
Echo chamber is actually a great description.

However, the reason labour are not in power IMHO is that their message is rubbish, so you can shout it as much as you want but it will be ignored by many.

If you can ban POTUS from his main media forum - you definitely have power.
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In not sure that was an expression of overt power. Trump abused the platforms pre-stated rules. It doesn't interview, it doesn't express opinions, it doesn't edit (aside from banning/deleting posts if they fall foul of rules) it doesn't mediate in the traditional sense.

Trump gamed twitter brilliantly in a way you couldn't game say, Paxman or a newspaper as Paxman can go 'Donald, mate, what the fuck are you on? Seriously!' in a way that twitter never does.
 
Ragnarok said:
Sorry but fb and twitter are just echo Chambers. If they were so powerful Labour would be in power. I think ravey davey once said twitter is not the real world...possibly the one thing he actually got right 🤣🤣
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Yes.

In turn the actual media is obsessed by twitter which is why it's always a bit surprised when the world doesn't reflect what it's read on twitter as it (the media) treats 90% of the country like a baffling novelty.

The papers do an article where they send a journo to Blackpool/someshithole/Middlesbrough and talk to six people in a pub every three months and then mostly talk to people in Westminster and read twitter. They surmise vaguely that 'people in the north think something or other' then go back to the Westminster gossip and political bitching on twitter.
 
seasideone said:
If POTUS used AVFTT I doubt he would be banned as his posts would increase the value of this site stratospheric!!!

FB and Twitter banned him.

To compare you or I being banned to someone who had real power, is ludicrous.
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Not really. You stated twitter had power and alluded to it having power to influence uk elections. I'm basically saying in my opinion it doesn't. That twitter banned The Don has fuck all to do with anything we are discussing around uk elections.
 
seasideone said:
If POTUS used AVFTT I doubt he would be banned as his posts would increase the value of this site stratospheric!!!

FB and Twitter banned him.

To compare you or I being banned to someone who had real power, is ludicrous.
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'EXPOTUS' or 'ONLYSIXTHONETERMERINHISTORY'

Or 'loser'.

Sorry, the name is still a trigger for me 🤨
 
seasideone said:
I agree about Scotland, as I don’t think a Labour government has been returned without Scottish labour MPs making the majority ever.
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1997, Bliar won a 179 majority with only 40 of that coming from Scotland, even if all 72 seats had gone against him he would still have had a majority, a similar story in 2001 I think.

2005 the number of seats in Scotland was cut from 72 to 59 with Bliar taking a 23 seat majority (out of 95 across the UK), even losing 41 seats from Scotland would've given him a comfortable majority albeit the fallout from the Iraq war might've been considerably more interesting.

That said without the 61 net Scottish seats in 1992 Major's 21 seat majority becomes a much more imposing 82 seats, at which point it's a very different parliament and I suspect Labour would've made far fewer gains in 1997 that it did in reality.
 
Lytham, don’t be mean spirited. I had a good look at the political wicket and decided to Bat knowing that if I could take the shine off a few lefties early on I could probably knock at least a double Ton in without much trouble.
Hook 2/3 people in a revolving circular argument and the boundaries come thick and fast.

Its nice to turn the wrist over again for old times sake and to show the folks that the Magic is still inside me 👍🏏🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
 
Bloodtangerine said:
Lytham, don’t be mean spirited. I had a good look at the political wicket and decided to Bat knowing that if I could take the shine off a few lefties early on I could probably knock at least a double Ton in without much trouble.
Hook 2/3 people in a revolving circular argument and the boundaries come thick and fast.

Its nice to turn the wrist over again for old times sake and to show the folks that the Magic is still inside me 👍🏏🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
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Will there be a score rate comparison chart with available with your effort and Phil's attempt side by side?
 
td53 said:
Will there be a score rate comparison chart with available with your effort and Phil's attempt side by side?
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Phil had a short spell where he could craft an innings but sadly it went to his head....the booze, the drugs, the women etc and he lost his edge.......and just like George Best, once he had started to waste his talent he could never climb to the top of the Mountain again.
I however have always stayed in shape, kept my bat oiled as it were and it’s paid off handsomely 🏏👍
 
Labour MP Khalid Mahmood has admitted his party has allowed the "woke brigade" to take it over and push out traditional Labour voters. the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr admitted core voters no longer feel at home in Labour which he accepted is a result of being taken over by the "London-based bourgeoisie" and "woke brigade". He promised to do as much as he can to clear this issue out and get traditional Labour core voters back. Asked about the party’s new core being the "brigades of woke social media warriors" and "London-based bourgeoisie", the MP replied that the Labour Party will have to chuck this 'woke brigade' out of the party in order to stand a chance in future elections.
 
What I find really unfathomable is that people are highly critical of labour when the other party seems to be full of charlatans cheats and liars. Now labour clearly have their failings but when I hear that the Tories have a vision I find it astonishing that people believe that vision, or indeed anything that comes out of the mouths of this government. Just give it a few years and people will see I would have been far better off off and I'm talking about the normal working person would have been far better off under an incompetent Labour government then this bunch of lying scheming clowns trying to give the circus away ( to all their mates in the corporate world).
I'm somehow looking forward to getting my Scottish passport in the none too distant future. I really believe this country is f****** finished for all but the wealthy. Much as it always was.
If anyone hasn't watched the series on BBC iPlayer 'can't get you out of my head' I give it a go it's very thought provoking and one of its key messages is that politicians now I've just run out of ideas and nobody knows what to do because they've handed it all over to the corporations. So hardly surprising they are all gathering around the trough.
 
brightontangerine said:
Just give it a few years and people will see I would have been far better off off and I'm talking about the normal working person would have been far better off under an incompetent Labour government then this bunch of lying scheming clowns trying to give the circus away ( to all their mates in the corporate world).
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Some voters might prefer "an incompetent Labour government" but fortunately not enough to ever get it elected.
 
Bloodtangerine said:
It’s a great innings that a minnow like you could only dream of so save your Vinegar for yer Chips as you screw up yer mush and look all Steptoe 😒....’Arooooold!
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It’s been a decent unbeaten partnership Blood.
You’ve scored about 82 runs (own posts) in a quick fire 200 😂
Fair play Bloodster 👍
 
Tangojoe said:
Some voters might prefer "an incompetent Labour government" but fortunately not enough to ever get it elected.
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Let's face it the quality of politicians has gone downhill over the years . There's always been an element of self-serving dishonesty around politicians but this lot are like a bunch of unscrupulous cheap carpet sellers. Anyway I'm finished with this now too depressing think I'll focus on the football what could possibly go wrong with that 🥺
 
brightontangerine said:
What I find really unfathomable is that people are highly critical of labour when the other party seems to be full of charlatans cheats and liars. Now labour clearly have their failings but when I hear that the Tories have a vision I find it astonishing that people believe that vision, or indeed anything that comes out of the mouths of this government. Just give it a few years and people will see I would have been far better off off and I'm talking about the normal working person would have been far better off under an incompetent Labour government then this bunch of lying scheming clowns trying to give the circus away ( to all their mates in the corporate world).
I'm somehow looking forward to getting my Scottish passport in the none too distant future. I really believe this country is f****** finished for all but the wealthy. Much as it always was.
If anyone hasn't watched the series on BBC iPlayer 'can't get you out of my head' I give it a go it's very thought provoking and one of its key messages is that politicians now I've just run out of ideas and nobody knows what to do because they've handed it all over to the corporations. So hardly surprising they are all gathering around the trough.
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Utter rambling suicide inducing nonsense
 
Chunkylad said:
It’s been a decent unbeaten partnership Blood.
You’ve scored about 82 runs (own posts) in a quick fire 200 😂
Fair play Bloodster 👍
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Always makes me laugh when someone goes through a thread and counts the posts 😂

Immaterial regardless, the rules are the rules and it’s a Magnificent Innings 🏏👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧
 
Bloodtangerine said:
Phil had a short spell where he could craft an innings but sadly it went to his head....the booze, the drugs, the women etc and he lost his edge.......and just like George Best, once he had started to waste his talent he could never climb to the top of the Mountain again.
I however have always stayed in shape, kept my bat oiled as it were and it’s paid off handsomely 🏏👍
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Run chases are a piece of piss, it's better to focus on quality Blood.
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
Run chases are a piece of piss, it's better to focus on quality Blood.
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I’m quantity and quality mate....Double Diamond they call me in the inner circles

Anyway you need to up your own game ......you are capable of some genius material but I feel you are not 100% committed to ripping the piss sardonically on AVFTT anymore and you know the old saying.....

“when a Man is tired of ripping it on AVFTT he is tired of Life“
 
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Bloodtangerine said:
Sam, if you don’t actually know the answer to that then I’m gonna have to place you in my “simple minded type” category old chap ......get your crayons out son 🐌
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I post little I have no idea who you are..obviously this forum is a big part of you life..crayons really!!! What a reply ..I won’t post again if you’re the standard..
 
Bloodtangerine said:
I’m quantity and quality mate....Double Diamond they call me in the inner circles

Anyway you need to up your own game ......you are capable of some genius material but I feel you are not 100% committed to ripping the piss sardonically on AVFTT anymore and you know the old saying.....

“when a Man is tired of ripping it on AVFTT he is tired of Life“
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I got tired man, tired and old.
 
Seasider Sam said:
I post little I have no idea who you are..obviously this forum is a big part of you life..crayons really!!! What a reply ..I won’t post again if you’re the standard..
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You do want you want. This forum is my whole life so I struggle to accept any criticism from a clearly “clever” lad like you . ...it hurts me real bad 😢
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
I got tired man, tired and old.
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Yeah but THEN you get the odd Mug like Sam who comes in giving it Large and you get the opportunity to both extend the innings and expose him as a Toby Jug.........


it’s too much joy to give up....keeps me young Lytham me auld Mucker 👍🕺
 
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